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Octafish
Octafish's Journal
Octafish's Journal
August 10, 2014
''Money trumps peace.'' -- George W Bush, White House press conference, 14 Feb 2007
"The sinews of war are endless profits." -- - Cicero, Orationes Philippicæ, v (c. 60 B.C.)
August 10, 2014
By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58
EXCERPT...
NSDD 159. MANAGEMENT OF U.S. COVERT OPERATIONS, (TOP SECRET/VEIL‑SENSITIVE), JAN. 18,1985
The Reagan administration's commitment to significantly expand covert operations had been clear since before the 1980 election. How such operations were actually to be managed from day to day, however, was considerably less certain. The management problem became particularly knotty owing to legal requirements to notify congressional intelligence oversight committees of covert operations, on the one hand, and the tacitly accepted presidential mandate to deceive those same committees concerning sensitive operations such as the Contra war in Nicaragua, on the other.
The solution attempted in NSDD 159 was to establish a small coordinating committee headed by Vice President George Bush through which all information concerning US covert operations was to be funneled. The order also established a category of top secret information known as Veil, to be used exclusively for managing records pertaining to covert operations.
[font color="red"]The system was designed to keep circulation of written records to an absolute minimum while at the same time ensuring that the vice president retained the ability to coordinate US covert operations with the administration's overt diplomacy and propaganda.
Only eight copies of NSDD 159 were created. The existence of the vice president's committee was itself highly classified.[/font color] The directive became public as a result of the criminal prosecutions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, and others involved in the Iran‑Contra affair, hence the designation "Exhibit A" running up the left side of the document.
CONTINUED...
PS: Thank you, Jackpine Radical. Sometimes I think SidDithers tries to assassinate my character on purpose.
:ROFL:
More from Christopher Simpson on Poppy Bush, Secret Government Big Shot...
George Bush Takes Charge: The Uses of ‘Counter-Terrorism’By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58
EXCERPT...
NSDD 159. MANAGEMENT OF U.S. COVERT OPERATIONS, (TOP SECRET/VEIL‑SENSITIVE), JAN. 18,1985
The Reagan administration's commitment to significantly expand covert operations had been clear since before the 1980 election. How such operations were actually to be managed from day to day, however, was considerably less certain. The management problem became particularly knotty owing to legal requirements to notify congressional intelligence oversight committees of covert operations, on the one hand, and the tacitly accepted presidential mandate to deceive those same committees concerning sensitive operations such as the Contra war in Nicaragua, on the other.
The solution attempted in NSDD 159 was to establish a small coordinating committee headed by Vice President George Bush through which all information concerning US covert operations was to be funneled. The order also established a category of top secret information known as Veil, to be used exclusively for managing records pertaining to covert operations.
[font color="red"]The system was designed to keep circulation of written records to an absolute minimum while at the same time ensuring that the vice president retained the ability to coordinate US covert operations with the administration's overt diplomacy and propaganda.
Only eight copies of NSDD 159 were created. The existence of the vice president's committee was itself highly classified.[/font color] The directive became public as a result of the criminal prosecutions of Oliver North, John Poindexter, and others involved in the Iran‑Contra affair, hence the designation "Exhibit A" running up the left side of the document.
CONTINUED...
PS: Thank you, Jackpine Radical. Sometimes I think SidDithers tries to assassinate my character on purpose.
:ROFL:
August 10, 2014
George Bush Takes Charge
The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"
By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58
A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.
During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.
Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.
The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.
SNIP...
Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.
CONTINUED...
CovertAction Quarterly no 58 Fall 1996 pp31-40.
Ha ha. It is to laugh.
Yeah. And I showed where you're wrong.
So, there's that, too. What bothers me is your defense of the BFEE helps cover up what Poppy Bush did as veep with presidential power:
George Bush Takes Charge
The Uses of "Counter-Terrorism"
By Christopher Simpson
Covert Action Quarterly 58
A paper trail of declassified documents from the Reagan‑Bush era yields valuable information on how counter‑terrorism provided a powerful mechanism for solidifying Bush's power base and launching a broad range of national security initiatives.
During the Reagan years, George Bush used "crisis management" and "counter‑terrorism" as vehicles for running key parts of the clandestine side of the US government.
Bush proved especially adept at plausible denial. Some measure of his skill in avoiding responsibility can be taken from the fact that even after the Iran‑Contra affair blew the Reagan administration apart, Bush went on to become the "foreign policy president," while CIA Director William Casey, by then conveniently dead, took most of the blame for a number of covert foreign policy debacles that Bush had set in motion.
The trail of National Security Decision Directives (NSDDS) left by the Reagan administration begins to tell the story. True, much remains classified, and still more was never committed to paper in the first place. Even so, the main picture is clear: As vice president, George Bush was at the center of secret wars, political murders, and America's convoluted oil politics in the Middle East.
SNIP...
Reagan and the NSC also used NSDDs to settle conflicts among security agencies over bureaucratic turf and lines of command. It is through that prism that we see the first glimmers of Vice President Bush's role in clandestine operations during the 1980s.
CONTINUED...
CovertAction Quarterly no 58 Fall 1996 pp31-40.
Ha ha. It is to laugh.
August 9, 2014
by Gahan Wilson
PHIL: This first slide here shows Madge and Bill standing right there in front of the New York Space Authority building, ready to start our trip. You can tell it was a pretty nice day on account they're not wearing any protective clothing except for goggles and a mask. The old guy got hit by our taxi–that was some wild driver we had–and the kid's playing a trick on him. Cute, hah?
MADGE: If he hadn't of done it someone else would of. CLICK.
PHIL: Now this here was some lucky shot. I was going to take a picture of Billy there, when this guy steps on the Hijacker Sentinel and pow, huh? What I mean is it really got him good. I asked why it done it and they said it was on account of he looked suspicious and if you study the expression on his face you can see how they got to wondering about him.
MADGE: It turned out he didn't have no gun or bomb or anything.
PHIL: Look, all they can do is the best they can and I'm glad they got those things up there protecting us, anyways. CLICK.
PHIL: Well then, after we got settled in our cabin and the ship took off and all, we went up to the observation lounge and I mean they had the place really fixed up swell. No less than sixteen TV sets all going at the same time, each on a different station, of course, and a bar and every kind of a slot machine and game like that you could wish for. Back there through that window you could see the universe out there if you wanted.
MADGE: I won a whole lot of credit at the Lucky Astronaut game but lost it all on the Zodiac Wheel. CLICK.
PHIL: Just a day out from Mars they announced everybody had to come and see the indoctrination lecture, and I hadn't been looking forward to that. It was something those stiffs at the United Nations had whipped up to teach you all about the Martians' customs and way of life and even their goddamn religion, for Christ's sake. But then I saw it was our social director, Earl, going to do it, and I relaxed right off.
MADGE: That Earl!
PHIL: You see, those UN creeps had given Earl a whole bunch of pictures and graphs and stuff he was supposed to teach us with, and I guess they'd bust a gut if they ever saw what he done with them. Here he is pretending to explain the sex life of a Martian; can you beat it? Only they don't have no sex life on account of they haven't had any babies in thousands of years. He sure had us all laughing. CLICK.
PHIL: Right at the space port they got these weird Martians trying to sell you pots and statues and stuff. Nothing but a lot of junk, if you ask me. Anyhow I was taking a picture of one of them when Billy did this here. It's a good thing those Martians can't talk or this one here would have really given the kid a couple of bad words I bet you.
MADGE: It's not that they can't talk, it's that they've taken an oath of silence. Don't you remember the joke Earl made on that, honey?
PHIL: Well, anyhow, the way that stuff broke up, he had a nerve trying to sell it. CLICK.
SOURCE and COMPLETE STORY:
http://www.bizbag.com/Click/click.htm
Happy Birthday, mopinko! And many, many, many more!
Click! All the way from Mars, courtesy of Mr. Gahan Wilson...
CLICK!by Gahan Wilson
PHIL: This first slide here shows Madge and Bill standing right there in front of the New York Space Authority building, ready to start our trip. You can tell it was a pretty nice day on account they're not wearing any protective clothing except for goggles and a mask. The old guy got hit by our taxi–that was some wild driver we had–and the kid's playing a trick on him. Cute, hah?
MADGE: If he hadn't of done it someone else would of. CLICK.
PHIL: Now this here was some lucky shot. I was going to take a picture of Billy there, when this guy steps on the Hijacker Sentinel and pow, huh? What I mean is it really got him good. I asked why it done it and they said it was on account of he looked suspicious and if you study the expression on his face you can see how they got to wondering about him.
MADGE: It turned out he didn't have no gun or bomb or anything.
PHIL: Look, all they can do is the best they can and I'm glad they got those things up there protecting us, anyways. CLICK.
PHIL: Well then, after we got settled in our cabin and the ship took off and all, we went up to the observation lounge and I mean they had the place really fixed up swell. No less than sixteen TV sets all going at the same time, each on a different station, of course, and a bar and every kind of a slot machine and game like that you could wish for. Back there through that window you could see the universe out there if you wanted.
MADGE: I won a whole lot of credit at the Lucky Astronaut game but lost it all on the Zodiac Wheel. CLICK.
PHIL: Just a day out from Mars they announced everybody had to come and see the indoctrination lecture, and I hadn't been looking forward to that. It was something those stiffs at the United Nations had whipped up to teach you all about the Martians' customs and way of life and even their goddamn religion, for Christ's sake. But then I saw it was our social director, Earl, going to do it, and I relaxed right off.
MADGE: That Earl!
PHIL: You see, those UN creeps had given Earl a whole bunch of pictures and graphs and stuff he was supposed to teach us with, and I guess they'd bust a gut if they ever saw what he done with them. Here he is pretending to explain the sex life of a Martian; can you beat it? Only they don't have no sex life on account of they haven't had any babies in thousands of years. He sure had us all laughing. CLICK.
PHIL: Right at the space port they got these weird Martians trying to sell you pots and statues and stuff. Nothing but a lot of junk, if you ask me. Anyhow I was taking a picture of one of them when Billy did this here. It's a good thing those Martians can't talk or this one here would have really given the kid a couple of bad words I bet you.
MADGE: It's not that they can't talk, it's that they've taken an oath of silence. Don't you remember the joke Earl made on that, honey?
PHIL: Well, anyhow, the way that stuff broke up, he had a nerve trying to sell it. CLICK.
SOURCE and COMPLETE STORY:
http://www.bizbag.com/Click/click.htm
Happy Birthday, mopinko! And many, many, many more!
August 7, 2014
There is such a thing as evil.
PS: Thank you, MinM. Your posts are must-reads. Every word.
Do you ever think of death, Dick?
There is such a thing as evil.
PS: Thank you, MinM. Your posts are must-reads. Every word.
August 5, 2014
Democracy...Going, Going Gone
Keeping Brennan as CIA Director = Triumph of Secret Government
by DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch, August 05, 2014
EXCERPT...
The undermining of American democracy has a long history, but the process accelerated mightily after World War II, with the creation of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other three-letter intelligence organizations like the Defense Intelligence Agency and more recently the Department of Homeland Security.
During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, it became the accepted wisdom that to “defend” American freedom, it was necessary to create a secret government run by spooks and bureaucrats who answered only to the president and to a select few members of Congress, most notably the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Tossed aside was Ben Franklin’s warning: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,”
Rare indeed have been the occasions when that committee has actually exercised any real authority over the CIA or the other intelligence agencies, but as poor a job as the Congress has done in reining in secret government over the last 65 years, it has gotten worse since 9-11, when intelligence agencies were given essentially carte blanche to spy not just on suspected terrorists but ordinary American citizens, and not just those suspected of crimes, but all of us.
Now, we’ve reached this moment of truth, when the committee finally did do some actual investigating into the behavior of the CIA with regard to illegal rendition and torture of people suspected of terrorism or of plotting terrorist acts against the US. In response to the committee’s efforts to actually look into secret illegal CIA activities, Brennan’s spooks began spying on and monitoring the activities of those Senate investigators, who work directly for the people that the US public elects to act on their behalf. Even worse, the agency concocted fake evidence which it brought to the US Office of Attorney General, seeking to have criminal charges brought against those same staffers.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/05/keeping-brennan-as-cia-director-triumph-of-secret-government/
Keeping Brennan as CIA Director = Triumph of Secret Government
Democracy...Going, Going Gone
Keeping Brennan as CIA Director = Triumph of Secret Government
by DAVE LINDORFF
CounterPunch, August 05, 2014
EXCERPT...
The undermining of American democracy has a long history, but the process accelerated mightily after World War II, with the creation of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other three-letter intelligence organizations like the Defense Intelligence Agency and more recently the Department of Homeland Security.
During the Cold War with the Soviet Union, it became the accepted wisdom that to “defend” American freedom, it was necessary to create a secret government run by spooks and bureaucrats who answered only to the president and to a select few members of Congress, most notably the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Tossed aside was Ben Franklin’s warning: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety,”
Rare indeed have been the occasions when that committee has actually exercised any real authority over the CIA or the other intelligence agencies, but as poor a job as the Congress has done in reining in secret government over the last 65 years, it has gotten worse since 9-11, when intelligence agencies were given essentially carte blanche to spy not just on suspected terrorists but ordinary American citizens, and not just those suspected of crimes, but all of us.
Now, we’ve reached this moment of truth, when the committee finally did do some actual investigating into the behavior of the CIA with regard to illegal rendition and torture of people suspected of terrorism or of plotting terrorist acts against the US. In response to the committee’s efforts to actually look into secret illegal CIA activities, Brennan’s spooks began spying on and monitoring the activities of those Senate investigators, who work directly for the people that the US public elects to act on their behalf. Even worse, the agency concocted fake evidence which it brought to the US Office of Attorney General, seeking to have criminal charges brought against those same staffers.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/05/keeping-brennan-as-cia-director-triumph-of-secret-government/
August 4, 2014
Poor, Poor Pitiful Me
Down and Out With Hillary Clinton
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition August 1-3, 2014
Pity Hillary. Evicted from her home, jobless, and, as she evocatively put it to Diane Sawyer, “dead broke.” Such were the perilous straits of the Clinton family in the early winter months of 2001, as they packed their belongings at the White House, and scurried away like refugees from Washington toward a harsh and uncertain future.
“We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Hillary recalled. “We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy.”
Hillary was on the cusp of middle age and, at this point, for all practical purposes a single mother. She hadn’t had a paying job in years and the prospects of resurrecting her law career were dim. She was emotionally drained, physically debilitated and hounded wherever she went by the dark forces of the right. All in all, her prospects on that cold January morning were grave.
With no life-ring to cling to, Hillary was forced to work furiously to save her family from a Dickensian existence of privation and destitution. Though she spared Sawyer the harrowing details, we can recreate some of her most grueling tasks. This meant giving several speeches a week to demanding audiences for $200,000 a pop, burning the midnight oil to complete her book so that she wouldn’t have to return her $8 million advance, booking Bill’s speeches at $500,000 an appearance and scrutinizing Bill’s $10 million book contract for any troublesome pitfalls. There were also those tedious documents to sign for Bill’s $200,000 presidential pension and her own $20,000 annual pension for her term as First Lady.
There was also that rather irksome request from the Banker’s Trust that Hillary authorize them to accept for deposit $1.35 million from a certain Terry McAuliffe to secure the Clinton’s loan for the purchase a five-bedroom house in Chappaqua, New York. She was also tasked with itemizing the $190,000 worth of gifts for the family’s new home that flooded into the White House during the last cruel weeks of the Clinton presidency and arranging moving vans for the $28,000 of White House furnishings the family took with them to their humble new digs in New York.
But Hillary put her nose to the grindstone. She didn’t complain. She didn’t apply for unemployment compensation or food stamps. She simply devoted herself feverishly to the tasks at hand and over the course the next few months the Clinton’s fraught condition began to improve rather dramatically.
By the end of 2001, the Clintons owned two homes: the $5.95 million Dutch Colonial in Chappaqua and the $2.85 Georgian mansion in DC’s bucolic Observatory Circle neighborhood. Her deft management of the family finances, a feat worthy of Cardinal Mazarin himself, allowed the displaced couple’s bank accounts to swell to more than $20 million. A carefully nourished blind trust also fattened to more than $5 million. In twelve short months, their net worth rose from “dead broke” to a fortune of more than $35 million. Thus was the Clinton family was saved from a life of poverty.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/01/down-and-out-with-hillary-clinton/
Then there's Honduras:
Hillary Clinton's Real Scandal Is Honduras, Not Benghazi
By Emily Schwartz Greco
Truth-Out, OtherWords | Op-Ed, Saturday, 26 July 2014
EXCERPT...
Clinton's apparent unbeatability this time around helps explain the right-wing hysteria over the Benghazi tragedy. The conspiracy theories about the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya amount to a desperate effort to discredit the Democratic Party's strong centrist candidate. It's no surprise that this ploy isn't making a dent on her popularity.
What beats me is why more Democrats aren't deeply troubled by the legacy of Clinton's foreign policy blunder in Honduras.
Maybe you've forgotten what happened in that small country in the first year of the Obama administration — more on that in a moment. But surely you've noticed the ugly wave of xenophobia greeting a growing number of Central American child refugees arriving on our southern border.
Some of President Barack Obama's supporters are trying to blame this immigration crisis on the Bush administration because of an anti-trafficking law George W. signed in 2008 specifically written to protect Central American children that preceded an uptick in their arrivals. But which country is the top source of kids crossing the border? Honduras, home to the world's highest murder rate, Latin America's worst economic inequality, and a repressive U.S.-backed government.
When Honduran military forces allied with rightist lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, then-Secretary of State Clinton sided with the armed forces and fought global pressure to reinstate him.
Washington wields great influence over Honduras, thanks to the numerous military bases built with U.S. funds where training and joint military and anti-drug operations take place. Since the coup, nearly $350 million in U.S. assistance, including more than $50 million in military aid has poured into the country.
That's a lot of investment in a nation where the police, the military, and private security forces are killing people with alarming frequency and impunity, according to Human Rights Watch.
CONTINUED...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25184-hillary-clintons-real-scandal-is-honduras-not-benghazi
Then there's the time the Senator sided with the Republicans over democracy in Haiti...
Bill and Hillary Clinton: “Friends of Haiti?”
Marty Goodman
Black Agenda Report, Wed, 12/05/2012
Bill Clinton and Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are called “the Friends of Haiti.” Oh, really?
After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, President Obama appointed Bill Clinton as US envoy, partnering with the Katrina and Iraq criminal George Bush, Jr., a supporter of the 2004 CIA-backed military coup which overthrew the elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. After the earthquake, Bill headed relief agencies, while excluding Haitians themselves. The stated theme of the Clinton-Bush effort was to “build back better.” Today, Bill is the UN envoy and acknowledged guiding hand behind international relief efforts.
Both Bill and Hillary are promoters of the U.S. dominated World Bank low-wage sweatshop plan for Haiti, angrily dubbed “the American Plan” by Haitians. Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti. The agreement includes massive tax breaks for sweatshop bosses. Workers there are making the starvation wage of about $3.50 a day.
On Oct 22, 2012 Bill and Hillary were on hand for the inaugural ceremony in Caracol. Also there was Haitian President Michael Martelly, a pro-coup right-winger linked to Duvalier era thugs. Hillary praised Martelly as Haiti’s “chief dreamer and believer.” Martelly, once again, declared Haiti “open for business.”
The sweatshop park was launched with $3 million from the “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund,” set up by the two Obama appointees to spearhead so-called earthquake relief fundraising. One park occupant, Sae-A Trading, is a large textile company cited by the AFL-CIO for “acts of violence and intimidation” against workers in Guatemala.
“Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti.”
In 1993, during Bill Clinton’s administration, he appointed his close friend Ron Brown as Secretary of Commerce. In the early 1980s, Brown was a partner in the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Brown was a paid attorney and a lobbyist for Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his family. Brown was also personally linked to wealthy Haitian pro-Duvalier figures.
CONTINUED...
http://blackagendareport.com/content/bill-and-hillary-clinton-%E2%80%9Cfriends-haiti%E2%80%9D
Then again, War Inc needs the oil. Right?
There's tons more owning up. Are you going to own up to supporting all that, Muriel _volestrangler?
Own up is right after Hillary Clinton explains why she's sided with Wall Street and the Warmongers.
For starters:
Poor, Poor Pitiful Me
Down and Out With Hillary Clinton
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition August 1-3, 2014
Pity Hillary. Evicted from her home, jobless, and, as she evocatively put it to Diane Sawyer, “dead broke.” Such were the perilous straits of the Clinton family in the early winter months of 2001, as they packed their belongings at the White House, and scurried away like refugees from Washington toward a harsh and uncertain future.
“We came out of the White House not only dead broke, but in debt,” Hillary recalled. “We had no money when we got there, and we struggled to, you know, piece together the resources for mortgages, for houses, for Chelsea’s education. You know, it was not easy.”
Hillary was on the cusp of middle age and, at this point, for all practical purposes a single mother. She hadn’t had a paying job in years and the prospects of resurrecting her law career were dim. She was emotionally drained, physically debilitated and hounded wherever she went by the dark forces of the right. All in all, her prospects on that cold January morning were grave.
With no life-ring to cling to, Hillary was forced to work furiously to save her family from a Dickensian existence of privation and destitution. Though she spared Sawyer the harrowing details, we can recreate some of her most grueling tasks. This meant giving several speeches a week to demanding audiences for $200,000 a pop, burning the midnight oil to complete her book so that she wouldn’t have to return her $8 million advance, booking Bill’s speeches at $500,000 an appearance and scrutinizing Bill’s $10 million book contract for any troublesome pitfalls. There were also those tedious documents to sign for Bill’s $200,000 presidential pension and her own $20,000 annual pension for her term as First Lady.
There was also that rather irksome request from the Banker’s Trust that Hillary authorize them to accept for deposit $1.35 million from a certain Terry McAuliffe to secure the Clinton’s loan for the purchase a five-bedroom house in Chappaqua, New York. She was also tasked with itemizing the $190,000 worth of gifts for the family’s new home that flooded into the White House during the last cruel weeks of the Clinton presidency and arranging moving vans for the $28,000 of White House furnishings the family took with them to their humble new digs in New York.
But Hillary put her nose to the grindstone. She didn’t complain. She didn’t apply for unemployment compensation or food stamps. She simply devoted herself feverishly to the tasks at hand and over the course the next few months the Clinton’s fraught condition began to improve rather dramatically.
By the end of 2001, the Clintons owned two homes: the $5.95 million Dutch Colonial in Chappaqua and the $2.85 Georgian mansion in DC’s bucolic Observatory Circle neighborhood. Her deft management of the family finances, a feat worthy of Cardinal Mazarin himself, allowed the displaced couple’s bank accounts to swell to more than $20 million. A carefully nourished blind trust also fattened to more than $5 million. In twelve short months, their net worth rose from “dead broke” to a fortune of more than $35 million. Thus was the Clinton family was saved from a life of poverty.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/08/01/down-and-out-with-hillary-clinton/
Then there's Honduras:
Hillary Clinton's Real Scandal Is Honduras, Not Benghazi
By Emily Schwartz Greco
Truth-Out, OtherWords | Op-Ed, Saturday, 26 July 2014
EXCERPT...
Clinton's apparent unbeatability this time around helps explain the right-wing hysteria over the Benghazi tragedy. The conspiracy theories about the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya amount to a desperate effort to discredit the Democratic Party's strong centrist candidate. It's no surprise that this ploy isn't making a dent on her popularity.
What beats me is why more Democrats aren't deeply troubled by the legacy of Clinton's foreign policy blunder in Honduras.
Maybe you've forgotten what happened in that small country in the first year of the Obama administration — more on that in a moment. But surely you've noticed the ugly wave of xenophobia greeting a growing number of Central American child refugees arriving on our southern border.
Some of President Barack Obama's supporters are trying to blame this immigration crisis on the Bush administration because of an anti-trafficking law George W. signed in 2008 specifically written to protect Central American children that preceded an uptick in their arrivals. But which country is the top source of kids crossing the border? Honduras, home to the world's highest murder rate, Latin America's worst economic inequality, and a repressive U.S.-backed government.
When Honduran military forces allied with rightist lawmakers ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, then-Secretary of State Clinton sided with the armed forces and fought global pressure to reinstate him.
Washington wields great influence over Honduras, thanks to the numerous military bases built with U.S. funds where training and joint military and anti-drug operations take place. Since the coup, nearly $350 million in U.S. assistance, including more than $50 million in military aid has poured into the country.
That's a lot of investment in a nation where the police, the military, and private security forces are killing people with alarming frequency and impunity, according to Human Rights Watch.
CONTINUED...
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/25184-hillary-clintons-real-scandal-is-honduras-not-benghazi
Then there's the time the Senator sided with the Republicans over democracy in Haiti...
Bill and Hillary Clinton: “Friends of Haiti?”
Marty Goodman
Black Agenda Report, Wed, 12/05/2012
Bill Clinton and Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are called “the Friends of Haiti.” Oh, really?
After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, President Obama appointed Bill Clinton as US envoy, partnering with the Katrina and Iraq criminal George Bush, Jr., a supporter of the 2004 CIA-backed military coup which overthrew the elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. After the earthquake, Bill headed relief agencies, while excluding Haitians themselves. The stated theme of the Clinton-Bush effort was to “build back better.” Today, Bill is the UN envoy and acknowledged guiding hand behind international relief efforts.
Both Bill and Hillary are promoters of the U.S. dominated World Bank low-wage sweatshop plan for Haiti, angrily dubbed “the American Plan” by Haitians. Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti. The agreement includes massive tax breaks for sweatshop bosses. Workers there are making the starvation wage of about $3.50 a day.
On Oct 22, 2012 Bill and Hillary were on hand for the inaugural ceremony in Caracol. Also there was Haitian President Michael Martelly, a pro-coup right-winger linked to Duvalier era thugs. Hillary praised Martelly as Haiti’s “chief dreamer and believer.” Martelly, once again, declared Haiti “open for business.”
The sweatshop park was launched with $3 million from the “Clinton Bush Haiti Fund,” set up by the two Obama appointees to spearhead so-called earthquake relief fundraising. One park occupant, Sae-A Trading, is a large textile company cited by the AFL-CIO for “acts of violence and intimidation” against workers in Guatemala.
“Last year, Hillary signed an agreement committing $124 million tax dollars to the building of the Caracol sweatshop assembly park in the north of Haiti.”
In 1993, during Bill Clinton’s administration, he appointed his close friend Ron Brown as Secretary of Commerce. In the early 1980s, Brown was a partner in the powerful Washington law firm of Patton, Boggs & Blow. Brown was a paid attorney and a lobbyist for Haitian dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and his family. Brown was also personally linked to wealthy Haitian pro-Duvalier figures.
CONTINUED...
http://blackagendareport.com/content/bill-and-hillary-clinton-%E2%80%9Cfriends-haiti%E2%80%9D
Then again, War Inc needs the oil. Right?
There's tons more owning up. Are you going to own up to supporting all that, Muriel _volestrangler?
August 3, 2014
So, CIA and Friends are gonna make out like it's all the Senate's fault.
House Intelligence chief Rogers doesn't think CIA spied on Senate
Source: The Hill / CNN
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said Sunday he doesn’t think the CIA spied on the Senate.
Rogers said it’s clear that someone at the CIA “overstepped their bounds,” but he also defended the agency during an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."
The House intelligence chief said the story of the CIA’s dispute with the Senate is a complicated one, but he added that the “notion” that the CIA “hacked” into congressional computers” is wrong.
“Remember, these weren’t Senate computers, these were CIA computers at the CIA,” he said.
“Somebody needs to be held accountable. This is very serious. But I don’t think this is some conspiracy notion that they wanted to spy on either of our committees,” Rogers said. “That of course would be intolerable. I think (it) would be a crime.
Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/214172-rogers-doesnt-think-cia-spied-on-senate
So, CIA and Friends are gonna make out like it's all the Senate's fault.
August 2, 2014
Jefferson Morley
JFKfacts.org, July 25, 2014
Ten years ago I filed a lawsuit seeking the records of a deceased CIA officer involved in the events leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy and its confusing investigatory aftermath.
On July 23 a federal judge ruled that the CIA did not have pay court costs associated with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation because the lawsuit had created “little, if any public benefit.”
The decision, by Judge Richard Leon, exemplifies the extraordinary deference that the CIA enjoys in the federal courts. Leon dismissed extensive newspaper coverage of the lawsuit and ignored the coverage of a key document it uncovered. He affirmed that the CIA’s conduct in keeping JFK assassination-related records secrets in 2014 was “reasonable.”
HIs narrow decision studiously avoids grappling with the wider story that my FOIA lawsuit sought to clarify: the untold story of CIA operations around accused presidential assassin Lee Oswald in the summer of 1963 and the agency’s subsequent obstruction of a congressional investigation in 1978.
The story of the late George Joannides is obviously relevant to the JFK story. In the course of my FOIA lawsuit, journalists and scholars and interested citizens learned that Joannides, a previously unknown CIA undercover operations officer, had not one, but two connections, to the JFK story that were unknown to the two official investigations of the murder of the liberal president in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
CONTINUED...
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/fifty-years-later-federal-judge-upholds-the-cias-right-to-keep-jfk-secrets/
BFEE Judges really tick me off. Take Richard Leon. Please.
Fifty one years later, federal judge upholds the CIA’s right to keep JFK secretsJefferson Morley
JFKfacts.org, July 25, 2014
Ten years ago I filed a lawsuit seeking the records of a deceased CIA officer involved in the events leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy and its confusing investigatory aftermath.
On July 23 a federal judge ruled that the CIA did not have pay court costs associated with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation because the lawsuit had created “little, if any public benefit.”
The decision, by Judge Richard Leon, exemplifies the extraordinary deference that the CIA enjoys in the federal courts. Leon dismissed extensive newspaper coverage of the lawsuit and ignored the coverage of a key document it uncovered. He affirmed that the CIA’s conduct in keeping JFK assassination-related records secrets in 2014 was “reasonable.”
HIs narrow decision studiously avoids grappling with the wider story that my FOIA lawsuit sought to clarify: the untold story of CIA operations around accused presidential assassin Lee Oswald in the summer of 1963 and the agency’s subsequent obstruction of a congressional investigation in 1978.
The story of the late George Joannides is obviously relevant to the JFK story. In the course of my FOIA lawsuit, journalists and scholars and interested citizens learned that Joannides, a previously unknown CIA undercover operations officer, had not one, but two connections, to the JFK story that were unknown to the two official investigations of the murder of the liberal president in downtown Dallas on November 22, 1963.
CONTINUED...
http://jfkfacts.org/assassination/news/fifty-years-later-federal-judge-upholds-the-cias-right-to-keep-jfk-secrets/
August 2, 2014
From his cell at a federal penitentiary in Louisiana, Gov. Siegelman is still seeking justice:
Appeals court to hear appeal of former Gov. Don Siegelman in October
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 24, 2014 - 11:23 am EDT
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A federal appeals court won't be hearing former Gov. Don Siegelman's case next week.
Back in April, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tentatively scheduled Siegelman's case for the week of July 28. But Siegelman attorney Susan James says the case has been reset for the week of Oct. 13.
A federal jury in 2006 convicted Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy on bribery and other charges. Prosecutors said Scrushy bribed Siegelman for a spot on a state regulatory board with donations to Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign.
Siegelman's lawyers say the case was tainted by the involvement of a prosecutor with ties to GOP politics and that the judge made multiple errors in calculating Siegelman's sentence.
SOURCE: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/34e9be7913ac4d86867111066639c2e8/AL--Siegelman-11th-Circuit
Not surprised my local paper didn't carry that news. Odd, though, that I didn't see it mentioned on DU.
Someone seldom mentioned anywhere good:
Meet Mark E Fuller, smirking in a photo taken minutes after presiding over the triple-jeopardy "trial" of Gov Siegelman:
The Case for Impeaching Federal Judge Mark Fuller
WantedAlabamaDemocrats, July 26, 2012
EXCERPT...
If you picture yourself being outraged, then you have a pretty good idea how former Governor Don Siegelman felt about his 2006 kangaroo-court conviction before George W. Bush-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller.
SNIP...
Fuller was for years, including during the Siegelman trial, a principal of Doss Aviation, Inc.; some reports made him a 43% owner.¹ He was listed on corporate reports as the company’s CEO, even after becoming a federal judge. Doss Aviation’s 2002 Annual Report on file with the Alabama Secretary of State² shows Fuller as the corporate president, with his office listed as 1 Church Street in Montgomery. That just happens to be the United States Courthouse, where Fuller’s court sits.³ In his 2010 financial disclosure form as a federal judge, Fuller valued his interest in Doss at between $5,000,000.00 and $25,000,000.00; with an additional $500,000.00 t0 $1,000,000.00 in the affiliated Doss of Alabama, Inc. That’s enough coin to get even Mitt Romney’s attention.
So what does Doss Aviation do? I will let the homepage of its website speak to that:
In other words, Doss Aviation is extremely, if not exclusively, dependent on government contracts, many of them no-bid, that can disappear if the Air Force - or the administration in power - decides it isn’t happy with, say, the rulings of a leading shareholder. (Remember, at the time of the Siegelman trial, the administration was Republican.) The conflict of interest is obvious to even a layman. Despite this, Fuller has, throughout his career as a federal judge, regularly decided cases involving the Air Force. A summary of the reported cases follows:
In another questionable case where the Air Force was not a party, Houston v. Army Fleet Services, L.L.C., 509 F.Supp.2d 1033 (M.D. Ala. 2007), Fuller denied summary judgment to an employment discrimination defendant - which is a competitor of Fuller’s company. I did not find one reported opinion in which Fuller was the judge, in which the Air Force lost the case.
CONTINUED...
http://wantedalabamademocrats.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-case-for-impeaching-federal-judge.html
World of difference between those two Alabamans.
Gov. Don Siegelman is still in prison and the BFEE judge who put him there is still a crook.
From his cell at a federal penitentiary in Louisiana, Gov. Siegelman is still seeking justice:
Appeals court to hear appeal of former Gov. Don Siegelman in October
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
July 24, 2014 - 11:23 am EDT
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — A federal appeals court won't be hearing former Gov. Don Siegelman's case next week.
Back in April, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals tentatively scheduled Siegelman's case for the week of July 28. But Siegelman attorney Susan James says the case has been reset for the week of Oct. 13.
A federal jury in 2006 convicted Siegelman and former HealthSouth CEO Richard Scrushy on bribery and other charges. Prosecutors said Scrushy bribed Siegelman for a spot on a state regulatory board with donations to Siegelman's 1999 lottery campaign.
Siegelman's lawyers say the case was tainted by the involvement of a prosecutor with ties to GOP politics and that the judge made multiple errors in calculating Siegelman's sentence.
SOURCE: http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/34e9be7913ac4d86867111066639c2e8/AL--Siegelman-11th-Circuit
Not surprised my local paper didn't carry that news. Odd, though, that I didn't see it mentioned on DU.
Someone seldom mentioned anywhere good:
Meet Mark E Fuller, smirking in a photo taken minutes after presiding over the triple-jeopardy "trial" of Gov Siegelman:
The Case for Impeaching Federal Judge Mark Fuller
WantedAlabamaDemocrats, July 26, 2012
EXCERPT...
If you picture yourself being outraged, then you have a pretty good idea how former Governor Don Siegelman felt about his 2006 kangaroo-court conviction before George W. Bush-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Mark Fuller.
SNIP...
Fuller was for years, including during the Siegelman trial, a principal of Doss Aviation, Inc.; some reports made him a 43% owner.¹ He was listed on corporate reports as the company’s CEO, even after becoming a federal judge. Doss Aviation’s 2002 Annual Report on file with the Alabama Secretary of State² shows Fuller as the corporate president, with his office listed as 1 Church Street in Montgomery. That just happens to be the United States Courthouse, where Fuller’s court sits.³ In his 2010 financial disclosure form as a federal judge, Fuller valued his interest in Doss at between $5,000,000.00 and $25,000,000.00; with an additional $500,000.00 t0 $1,000,000.00 in the affiliated Doss of Alabama, Inc. That’s enough coin to get even Mitt Romney’s attention.
So what does Doss Aviation do? I will let the homepage of its website speak to that:
Founded in 1970, Doss Aviation, Inc. enjoys over 40 years [sic] experience in supporting the U.S. Government in flight training, aircraft maintenance, maintenance training, into-plane aircraft fuels and bulk fuels management, transient aircraft support services, air traffic control, and other airfield management/logistics services. The company built an enviable reputation in over 50 contracts performing a variety of services for the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, Defense Logistics Agency - Energy (DLA-E), NASA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security.
In other words, Doss Aviation is extremely, if not exclusively, dependent on government contracts, many of them no-bid, that can disappear if the Air Force - or the administration in power - decides it isn’t happy with, say, the rulings of a leading shareholder. (Remember, at the time of the Siegelman trial, the administration was Republican.) The conflict of interest is obvious to even a layman. Despite this, Fuller has, throughout his career as a federal judge, regularly decided cases involving the Air Force. A summary of the reported cases follows:
•Webster v. Wynne, 2010 WL 5394752 (M.D. Ala. 2010). Civil employee of the Air Force alleged employment discrimination against the Air Force. Summary judgment granted to Air Force.
•United States v. 22.58 Acres of Land, 2010 WL 431254 (M.D. Ala. 2010). Action seeking condemnation of certain real property located in Montgomery County at the request of the Air Force. Landowner’s motion to dismiss denied.
•OSI, Inc. v. United States, 510 F.Supp.2d 531 (M.D. Ala. 2007). Owner of property adjoining Air Force base sued United States government and officials, stemming from alleged dumping of Air Force hazardous wastes into landfill on property. Summary judgment granted to Air Force.
•Waid v. United States, 2006 WL 1766808 (M.D. Ala. 2006). Driver of automobile injured in accident with Air Force vehicle sued for injuries. Claim against Air Force dismissed.
•Keel v. U.S. Dept. of Air Force, 256 F.Supp.2d 1269 (M.D. Ala. 2003). Plaintiff, a white male, claimed that defendants terminated him on the basis of his race and sex in violation of Title VII, and retaliated against him by barring his access to Air Force base. Summary judgment entered for Air Force.
In another questionable case where the Air Force was not a party, Houston v. Army Fleet Services, L.L.C., 509 F.Supp.2d 1033 (M.D. Ala. 2007), Fuller denied summary judgment to an employment discrimination defendant - which is a competitor of Fuller’s company. I did not find one reported opinion in which Fuller was the judge, in which the Air Force lost the case.
CONTINUED...
http://wantedalabamademocrats.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-case-for-impeaching-federal-judge.html
World of difference between those two Alabamans.
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